Hi All, I have an old pair of brakes on my Peugeot. They are not great at stopping and want to invest in some new dual brake callipers like 105 etc. I already have cables to the originals and only just put the handle bar tape on so don't really want to remove all that to replace the cable as well. Is this possible or do? I have do full replacement of the cables when changing the callipers?

Tektro make a nice dual pivot brake that isn't very expensive - they won't be 105 quality but aren't priced that way either and are better than sidepulls.

However, new cables (inners and outers) plus new pads will make a huge difference to how your old brakes work. I recommend you do that first (stuff the bar tape, that's easy to redo) and you will probably find that while the dual pivot brakes would be a very nice thing to have, you no longer feel the urge to spend all that money.

Brake cable is cheap and whatever you fit can be used if you fit better brakes later. Similarly, buy good quality pads (with their own carrier) now and if you decide to buy better brakes, just shift the pads across.

The Jamis has Shimano600 brakes - the Ultegra of the early nineties. Those are brilliant and being second hand, didn't cost much. Once they went to dual pivot brakes, the brakes didn't get significantly stronger with each upgrade, just lighter, so don't go thinking you need to buy top level, brand new brakes. They do look very nice though

The Europa wears a pair of Diacompe side pulls powered by a pair of Shimano600 aero levers. With new cables and new pads, they work very well indeed, though the bike is fixed gear so nearly all my braking chores are done with my feet. However, I'm not too fussed about them for emergency stops. Having said that, the dual pivot brakes are light years ahead in power and feel.

Just watch that any new brakes have enough reach, many of us on here with older, side-pull equipped bikes have cursed the fact that modern short reach brakes require a drop-bolt to reach the calipers, and the fact that long reach dual calipers appear to be made of unobtainium, to use Richard's phrase.

Given that the bulk of braking forces are taken up by the front calipers, there's not a lot of forces required to reach lock up for the rear. So why further beef up the rear caliper than necessary? Not as if the present Campy rear caliper is of poor design.

McPete wrote:Trouble I have with that idea is that I always find single pivot systems harder to modulate than dual pivot systems... Suppose it'd make it a bit cheaper to make.

Guess it's a case of not all single pivot systems are the same, and quality of the pads may also contribute. In any case, I've had no problems with the ability to modulate on my Campy calipers, rear or front.

Campy are probably the only people making a decent quality single pivot brake. I can't see the point myself and would put it very firmly in the 'marketing' basket along with their decision not to make a triple setup - if it's too expensive to keep developing a triple chainring set up, why is it not expensive to keep developing a different rear brake to the front? Marketing. Trying to be seen to be different, which is probably fair enough when you consider the groupset market.

Quite frankly, if you can't use both brakes to the point of lockup without exceeding that, and then modulate them to maintain the point as the braking conditions vary (lower speed, weight transfer, etc), you have not done enough practice braking and your skills are lacking. Whether or not you choose to put in that extra practice is up to you and in the real world, it probably doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference, but don't blame the brakes and the conditions if you can't do it - the brakes can, its the hands squeezing the levers that make the difference.

europa wrote:Campy are probably the only people making a decent quality single pivot brake. I can't see the point myself and would put it very firmly in the 'marketing' basket along with their decision not to make a triple setup - if it's too expensive to keep developing a triple chainring set up, why is it not expensive to keep developing a different rear brake to the front? Marketing. Trying to be seen to be different, which is probably fair enough when you consider the groupset market.

If you subscribe to the WW side of things, a single pivot caliper would be another bit of weight saved. Further, if the design and function are well matched to the usage requirements, the single pivot is the simpler mechanical design. So by the KISS principle, it's the obvious choice. So I'd suggest the exact reverse, that using double pivot at the rear is marketing as it rides on that somewhat mis-guided "double pivot is better" consumer mentality.

Campy does have triples as I am running Veloce triple on one of my bikes. Further, triples are still in Campy's range even in their 2008 catalogue and with a choice three groupset levels.

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